You may have seen this already, but I just stumbled upon it today. Here is a link to 81 pages of information from a 2006 survey Mtv conducted concerning teenagers and social activism.
(S.O. to Ypulse)

A group from our student ministries team recently set a little time aside to pick one of the four gospels and from that gospel, read only the words of Christ. We then spent some time discussing what popped out.

I read Christ’s words from the gospel of Mark. What I couldn’t shake was the level of confidence and authority with which Jesus spoke. He knew what he was saying was true, and boldly proclaimed it. He upset people, he confused people, sometimes he explained what he meant and sometimes he didn’t. But he was always confident when speaking what he knew to be true.

After spending some time reflecting on this, I came to the conclusion that I probably need to be more confident when speaking God’s truths and less confident when speaking my own.

It seems much more popular in ministry/theology discussions today to get fired up and make declarations about a whole bunch of stuff we think we know (by the way, much of theology is just stuff we think we know)than to stand firm on the stuff we know for certain based on God’s word.

Not sure where I’m heading with these thoughts….but I’ve been pondering them.

I’ve always been a visual learner, and lately I’ve been trying to be more of a visual teacher; using simple pictures to illustrate deeper points. I haven’t been doing it real well; but trying.

Then, coincidentally, I ran across this book and am totally loving it. It makes a science out of the art of visual communication.

Lesson Topic: Week One of our Series ‘Strange But True’ (Elijah and the prophets of Baal)
Attendance: Average
‘Fun Factor’: Above Average
Volunteer Involvement: Below Average
Music: Above Average
Lesson Quality: Below Average
Length of Lesson: 18 mins
Student Response: Average

It was a strange weekend for us. Lots of creativity went into the program, but I’d say the audience response wasn’t what we thought it would be. The crowd just seemed a little dead overall. The band was an all student band which meant the quality dropped off a little bit, but it was great to see a band of 100% students! The lesson was good and bad…I feel like a did a pretty good job of telling the account of Elijah Vs. the Prophets of Baal and seemed to have the students interest, but my application didn’t seem to hit the mark the way I hoped it would.
All in all, it was a well planned, well executed and creative weekend that missed the mark a bit.

My mind often has a hard time reconciling oxymoron’s; especially ones that matter more than jumbo shrimp.
Lately I’ve been thinking about the bigness of God and the smallness of me. Where the struggle lies is in the tension between a sense of utter irrelevance and a great sense of esteem and worth at the same time. Scripture seems to make it clear that God spoke the entire universe into existence, and science seems to have made it clear that the universe is a massive, massive creation. In light of this it’s clear that I’m insignificant. But scripture also says that the same God who spoke the world into existence took the time to knit me together in my mother’s womb. When I pause to think about that I get a bit overwhelmed: God simply spoke and the universe was made, but he took the time to hand-make me! In light of this it’s clear that I’m incredibly significant.

Insignificant and significant at the same time. That hurts my head a little but makes me feel pretty good (but not too good….)!

It was an exciting weekend at church. We launched two new regional campuses (in Irvine, about 15 minutes North of our main campus and in Corona, about 40 minutes east.). Both campuses had fantastic opening weekend attendance and seem to be off to a great start. Leo Galarza is our Student Ministries Pastor in Irvine and we are still hunting for a part-time (that will hopefully turn full time sometime soon)Student Ministry Pastor for our Corona campus.

Today,
I’m heading off for three days of camping at the beach with my son, my brother and his son. We are heading a few hours of the coast to the Santa Barbara area. We couldn’t have asked for better weather. No real plans other than hiking, swimming, playing catch, climbing trees and being lazy.

I feel like I’ve had one the busiest, most diverse, but most fun weeks in a long time.
- Last weekend I was in Palm Springs Speaking at Believe. We took a handful of our 8th grade student leaders to check it out to see if it’s something we might want to do as an entire ministry next year. They loved it and I hope we can fit it into our schedule of events.

- I stayed in the desert for two extra days to ride dirt-bikes with some friends which was great.

- Tuesday through Wednesday I took our Student Ministries Core Leadership Team on a short retreat. The goal of this retreat (which consisted of our intern director, high school pastor, junior high director, volunteers director, music director, minister to hurting kids, and both regional campus youth pastors) was really just to spend some quality time together and rally around a few key issues.

- Yesterday I spent the day with about 20 other junior high youth workers from Southern California for our “So Cal Connection”. We meet twice a year to hang out and toss a variety of topics on the subject. If you are a junior high youth worker in the Southern California area and would like to know about future gatherings I’d be happy to fill you in.

- Right now I’m getting ready to board a flight to Phoenix with Matt Hall and Katie Edwards. We will then drive three hours to an Indian reservation to explore some future missions opportunities. We get home about 11:00 tonight.

- Beginning tomorrow I will serve at 5 of our easter services.

- Haven’t been to a theater for a movie in a while and feel like I’m over due. The most recent movie I saw was Michael Clayton on a plane ride. It was a lot different than I thought it would be, but pretty good.

- Something on t.v. bothered me so much that I actually hollered at it. Must not have bothered me too much, though, because I can’t remember what it was. Gosh, I am becoming my father.

- Is it just me or does it seem like the purposeful cycle of the media is to build people up simply to tear them down? Maybe that’s what I was hollering at.

- Gonna spend Sunday afternoon and Monday dirt bike riding out in the desert with some buddies. No families this time, just a guy trip.

- Because I love Shave Ice so much, I’ve been promising to purchase a shave ice machine for the new student building at our church. I just found out the machine that makes the good stuff costs $2,500.00! I’m asking myself if I promised to buy the machine or just said I might buy the machine!

- This weekend I speak at my third, and final, Jr. High Believe. It’s in Palm Springs so we’re taking about a dozen of our leadership kids to let them check it out and see if it’s something we want to plug our entire ministry into next year. My hunch is that they’ll totally love it…other than the speaker, of course.

By now you’ve probably heard the recent news that 1 in 4 teenage girls has an STD. Here is Wall Street Journal article and some interesting discussion.

This month marks the 10-year anniversary of the MP3 player.